


Harm Reduction

by Winnychan



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Apocalypse, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Darktober, Darktober2018, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Episode: s03e21 Same As It Never Was, Gen, Heroin, Pre-Same As It Never Was, Recreational Drug Use, Sad, Substance Abuse, Talking To Dead People, darkoctober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 02:04:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16254443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winnychan/pseuds/Winnychan
Summary: Donatello is gone, the Shredder has taken over New York, and Raphael is not coping very well with any of this.Set prior to the apocalyptic future episode from the TMNT 2003 series, ‘Same As It Never Was’. Written for the fandom challenge 'Darktober' using the prompt 'Addiction'.





	Harm Reduction

_(Fanart by the amazing AlessandraDC!)_

* * *

 

It hurt to think of them. Everything about this life hurt, and there was only one way Raphael knew to stop it.

He wasn't proud. Not anymore, not like he had been all through his golden childhood, his heroic adolescence, or the romantic tragedy of his early twenties. He’d had so much, but had not been able to see or even grasp the fact until all was lost.

This wasn't the worst squat he’d ever found. The roof was solid enough on the far side and kept most of the rain out. It was several stories up. He'd destroyed the stairwell himself, making it inaccessible to humans except for the patrolling Foot police. There was no keeping them out. Raphael was already resigned to the fact that he would be discovered and have to move eventually. For now, his hiding spot had gone unnoticed and gave him the illusion of safety.

Last night he had nearly been too sick to scale the building, but tonight was different. Anticipation gave him wings.

It was so good to be holding again, even if the means to it had been less than ideal. They hadn't even been dealers. Just a couple of punks, obviously high and stumbling home after a score. He had jumped them without hesitation. He’d been desperate, shivering and miserable, unable to sleep for days. Where on earth had they got it, he wondered? These days dealers knew better than to come anywhere near Manhattan. For a long time he’d clung to some semblance of honor, reserving violence for criminals in the strictest sense. In this way he’d been able to ignore his impure motives, but it was no longer possible to kid himself. There just weren't enough of them in the vicinity anymore to sustain him.

Oh, to find an actual dealer… the morality issue be damned! To track down somebody with a _decent_ _stash_ …

Drugs consumed huge portions of his day, his thoughts, his existence. When he wasn't high on heroin, he was searching and scheming. Making do in the meantime with booze, pills, whatever he could get his hands on. Sobriety had become unbearable. With sobriety came feeling, and feeling meant grief and remorse, a life that was ugly and made entirely of sharp edges.

It was hard, that they all knew what he had become. But not so hard that he could find the will or determination to change anything.

Raphael moved across the room, cutting a path through the ash-speckled swords of evening light that spilled from holes in the roof above. His calloused feet creaked under the moldering floorboards, and he didn’t bother to slow and correct himself. There was no need for stealth in this place, not when the infrared visors of Foot Police could see through the walls. Anticipation made him careless.

The far side of the room was dark and inviting, but he stopped just short of the comforting shadows. Beyond it lay the pile of blankets and pilfered bedding that served as his bed. For now, he needed the light. This building had no power, of course, and hadn't for years. Raph only had a single flashlight, and he needed it for another purpose. It meant he was in a race against the setting sun, and time was running out. He was determined to win that race.

His mouth became wet and his hands shook as he brought out the night’s prize -- a bindle of tiny stamp-sized packets. _Definitely from Jersey_ , he decided as he peeled one of the waxy paper packets off and held it up to observe the crude picture of a cobra printed on the side. Jersey had been the heroin capital of the East Coast even before the Shredder took over his city. If there was anyone still operating out of New York City these days, surely none of them had the organization or resources to bother with decorating their product.

He shrugged out of his bomber jacket and fished around in one of the pockets for his kit. An old tablespoon. Small but powerful flashlight. A tourniquet, which he didn't bother to use much of the time… but tonight's score was not huge. He couldn't afford to waste even a single shot and was determined not to miss.

Perhaps the most precious and unlikely item in his kit, aside from the actual drugs: a can of Simply Saline nasal spray. He picked up the can and popped the lid off, shook it experimentally, and winced. It felt frighteningly light. “Yer gonna be so pissed off at me when this shit runs out…” he muttered to the empty room.

_Then you will just have to find more._

“Fuck that,” Raph sneered as he upended the can and sprayed a small puddle into the tablespoon. “When it runs out, I’ll use water, like every other fucking junkie I met in this town!”

 _No, Raph._ Not 'Raphie’. His dead brother's tone had grown too severe for endearments. _Nine percent sodium chloride is much gentler on your veins._

“Yeah, no shit! But if ya haven't noticed, I can't just stroll down to the local drug store ta pick up more of this crap.”

_If you must resort to water, you will need to find a clean running tap. Those are in short supply lately, too._

“Fhh,” Raph blew through his teeth in irritation. Don was just full of obvious facts tonight.

_Never bottled, Raph. The bacteria in your average bottle of water… I can't handle it. Promise me!_

“Fine, yeah! I promise,” Raphael snapped. “For like the millionth time, I promise. At least this ought ta make you happy…”

He brought out one of the alcohol wipes he had filched from the resistance's medical supply. The rig that followed was clean as well, completely unused. “There, see? Motherfucking harm reduction.”

_I suppose. Though I would be happier if you had thought to boil the tablespoon._

“Oh, for fucksake--with what fire, Donnie? Plus, I already sprayed the saline shit in there!”

_Just saying._

“Yeah, well, forget that!” Raph snarled. “I ain't wastin’ it. God, there's no pleasing ya!”

_Nothing about this situation pleases me._

Raph was probably asking for that, with his phrasing. He’d heard it so many times before. Really, just the once. But the echoes of that conversation were eternal. There was nothing he could say to that, so he didn't bother trying. He bent his head to tear open the stamp and empty its contents into the spoon.

_What you have there is gunpowder, so there's no need to break it down with citric acid. So, make it a cold shot. Heat would only make it harder to filter out the impurities. And you are going to filter._

“Have you ever seen me **not** filter? What the fuck ya think I'm carrying all these q-tips around for? Ta clean wax outta my ears?” Nonetheless, he fished one out and tugged the cotton head off, rolled it into a tight ball, and dropped it into the spoon.

He was going crazy. Had gone, past tense. It was painfully obvious. Here he was, huddled in the dark of an abandoned building, talking to himself like a lunatic. To top it off, Don was being annoying as Hell tonight. But it still beat being completely alone.

He tied off efficiently, tore open the alcohol wipe to sterilize the needle, then went to swab the outer crook of his arm.

 _No. Not there._ Don had other ideas.

Raph squeezed his good eye shut and growled. “I know I can hit it there!”

_Right. Because you hit there last time. And if you want keep hitting there for any length of time…_

The turtle released a shaky breath of pure frustration. “Yeah, yeah… rotate sites. I got it.” He got out the flashlight and began hunting further up his arm for a viable spot.

Oh, to have the thin, soft skin of a human… to see the hint of blue highways running just below the surface with his naked eye! And he never had the delicate touch that Donnie had, that supernatural ability to press into the meat of his arm and feel the springy veins against the tips of his fingers. It was downright magical, the way Don had been able to hit a vein. It made Raphael's efforts look like the fumbling of a clumsy caveman in comparison. Instead he spent a good five minutes pressing the flashlight to his skin searching for the hint of darker lines running under the scaly hide that always made this part so damn difficult.

 _Oh, Raphie… I never wanted this for you._ It was what Don always said lately at the sight of his badly scarred arms. Somehow Don had managed never to get scars.

“Yeah, well, I never wanted you ta be dead,” Raph muttered as he loaded the rig, fighting the words past a painful knot in his throat. “You don't get ta lecture me. You checked out early! Look, do you want me to miss? Do you really feel like talkin’ me through draining another fucking abscess? Shaddup already, so I can focus!”

Too harsh, maybe. His brother's ghost had gone as silent as the grave.

It didn't matter. In a few moments, it wouldn't matter.

He didn't even feel the needle going in. Fresh rigs were amazing like that. He pulled back and studied the chamber… nothing. Deeper still… nothing. “I'm backin’ out, okay?” he announced, before his brother’s ghost had the chance to nag him about 'digging around’.

But maybe there was no point. Eerie silence was the only reply.

Now his mouth was watering again. That was the cue to slow his breathing, recall the ancient methods passed on by their long dead sensei. It was a shameful misuse of lessons that had been intended to help him enter a meditative state, but it got the job done. He couldn't afford shaking hands right now. And if he could just land this goddamned shot, shaming their father would be the furthest thing from his mind…

He should apologize to Donnie. The thought came unbidden, as the needle went in the second time. “Look, I didn't mean ta…” he began, growling around a mouthful of rubber tourniquet. But, what was the point? Donnie wasn't actually here. He was a delusion, dead and gone.

_But I still need him. God, don't leave me, Don. Don't you dare fucking leave me again._

But then, there it was. On just his second attempt, red blood shot into the chamber, a stem that opened and bloomed. The red flower, and no plant on earth had ever looked so beautiful. Pure elation hit his bloodstream at the sight of it, well before he even touched the plunger.

He used his teeth to yank the tourniquet loose and down it went, no resistance. A perfect hit. His eye fluttered and he slumped backwards.

Oh, it was good. This Jersey shit, after five days without… fucking incredible.

He was throwing up before he quite realized it. Managed to aim himself away from both the bedding and his jacket, onto the dirty floorboards. Some vomit got on his plastron as he was struggling to sit back up, but it didn't really matter. Just meant it was really good shit. There wasn't much in his stomach to begin with.

Soon it was over, and nothing to be done about it. He didn't have the coherence left to pick up his kit or hide the drugs or anything, let alone clean puke off of himself. He managed a clumsy crab walk backwards, getting away from the puke and dropping onto the bedding with a visceral groan of pleasure.

He lay there in the stinking darkness, and it was heavenly.

And then, through the fog of the warm and humming world, he heard a voice. A soft, anxious, beloved voice.

_Roll over. Now, Raphie. Roll onto your side. Never fall asleep on your back, it's dangerous. You promised…_

Lumbering but obedient, Raph rolled onto his side. He blinked and stretched a hand out into the darkness, towards the voice. “Thought... maybe you'd gone. But yer not. Yer... still here w’me…”

_Always._


End file.
